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Wednesday, July 23, 2014

US intelligence: No direct link to Russia in Malaysia plane downing

WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that
Russia was responsible for "creating the conditions" that led to the
shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but they offered no
evidence of direct Russian government involvement.

The intelligence officials were cautious in their assessment, noting
that while the Russians have been arming separatists in eastern Ukraine,
the U.S. had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot down the
passenger jet came from Russia.

The officials briefed reporters Tuesday under ground rules that their
names not be used in discussing intelligence related to last week's air
disaster, which killed 298 people.

However, the officials said they did not know who fired the missile
or whether any Russian operatives were present at the missile launch.
They were not certain that the missile crew was trained in Russia,
although they described a stepped-up campaign in recent weeks by Russia
to arm and train the rebels, which they say has continued even after the
downing of the commercial jetliner.

In terms of who fired the missile, "we don't know a name, we don't
know a rank and we're not even 100 percent sure of a nationality," one
official said, adding at another point, "There is not going to be a
Perry Mason moment here."

The officials said the most likely explanation for why the plane was
shot down is that the rebels made a mistake. Separatists previously had
shot down 12 Ukrainian military airplanes, the officials said.